SCP 173: Recruitment Files - Bruce Banner
by Mangerang
Summary: Secure Contain and Protect. The SCP foundation is a place that handles strange creatures of all kinds, its personnel are chosen wisely and some experience more drastic events before entering than others. Bruce Banner's recruitment was one such odd occurrence, a man who faced a Euclid classed SCP before he was even a member.


SCP-173

To Secure, Contain, and Protect: The SCP Foundation is an international organization responsible for the safe capture and containment of extra-dimensional, extra-terrestrial, and supernatural entities. The Foundation contains and researches these anomalies for the protection of civilization as we know it. There are three levels of SPC objects, classified based on their potential threat as follows: Safe, Euclid, and Keter. SCP personnel are carefully trained and selected, and submitted to regular and extensive psychological testing.

Item #: SCP-173

Object Class: Euclid

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Recruitment Story: Research Operator - Bruce Banner 

"Hey, you gonna stand there all day, Banner?"

He flinched and looked up from his work toward another nameless person that he couldn't be bothered to remember anymore. "Yeah uh… no, I'll be right down, you guys start without me." It was lunchtime in the office and everyone was vacating to the cafeteria. It was pizza day, meaning greasy cardboard covered in cheese and maybe one old pepperoni slice if he was lucky. Bruce shuddered at the thought, though mostly he didn't like the idea of sitting with all of these ass-clowns for another meal. He'd much rather pull his packed lunch from the lounge fridge and sit in his office.

But we all can't get what we want. He put a sticky-note bookmark in place and closed his work binder for the time being. To say he was bored would be an understatement, but really, what office employee isn't ready to tear their hair out? At least he wasn't in customer service; the boss had learned that the hard way after his 'incident' on the phone. Bruce all but had a nervous break down, shouting at the caller for all he was worth with every insulting word he could come up with on the spot.

After his mental health leave, he returned to a desk job. It wasn't any higher on the food chain but at least it wasn't customer service. People were stupid. Flocks of people were stupider. Was it so much to ask for something different?

As Bruce descended the stairwell to the lunchroom, someone who felt like he was getting too lazy always taking the elevator, he could hear something echoing up from the lower floors. It sounded like screaming; horrible, terrified screaming. He froze in his descent and waited, listening to what he could only judge to be a massacre below him. What do you do when you hear something like that? Call the police right away? No, no one ever did that. Why? Because if it turned out to be a false alarm you'd look like an idiot.

And for some reason pride always seemed to get the better of people, Bruce was no exception.

His heart jumped into his throat, beating rapidly and out of time. The screams were silenced so fast, all of them, and he just stood there, listening to it happen. Part of him felt awful for it but the rest screamed 'what the hell? I'm just a desk guy, what am I supposed to do?' But that didn't really help any.

Slowly, he continued down, as quietly as he possibly could until he reached the cafeteria floor. Everyone gathered here on Fridays, it was pizza day. Bruce had to wonder if he was the only living thing in the building as he carefully peeked open the door.

He got his answer. People were left scattered all over the place, heads twisted around, some had the complexion of a blueberry, it was hideous. Bruce could feel the blood drain from his face as he gazed down at the mess, his pulse feeling like a vibrator beneath his skin. Had the murderer left? He looked around and spotted the strangest figure, it looked like a doll, a really really ugly doll. Stained in every way, it's texture was off-putting, and its face… was that even a face?

Whatever it was it put him on edge, Bruce swallowed nervously and glanced to the other side of the room before looking back at the doll.

It was closer.

It was actually much closer, half way across the room from where it had been five seconds ago.

"What the hell are you…?" Bruce breathed out, his hands started to get sweaty as he realized every time he blinked it got even closer. _'It moves when I'm not looking. IT FUCKING MOVES WHEN I'M NOT LOOKING!'_ His mind shrieked as he held his gaze, frantically trying to do some math in his head. Judging by how fast it had moved across the floor in five seconds and the distance it covered each time he blinked, he had approximately 3 blinks left before the thing was on him. But he couldn't be one hundred percent.

He had no idea how this thing worked, if it was just messing with him or what, but he had 3 blinks to practice with. Despite his heart pounding and the way his body shook while terrified, Bruce tried to figure out a good way to get away from this thing. Would it be able to kill him if he closed the door? What if he blinked with one eye at a time? Could it open doors? How intelligent was it? Did it want something? Could he kill it?

Bruce tried blinking one eye at a time first and was relieved to find it worked. _'All right, just concentrate on blinking; don't look away from it. Do I risk closing the door? If I open it again, that thing'll be right there. If it can open doors I'm fucked.'_ He looked at the way it was shaped, its hands and feet. They were stubs, there was no way it could grasp a door handle. _'It's a stairwell, doofus, the handle is only in the stairwell itself, the other side is a push release.'_

That settled that; he couldn't close the door. Though if he did and slowly backed up the stairs to the next floor he could close it and then this thing would be stuck in the stairwell, unable to grab the handle with its stubby hands. Or so Bruce hoped. What if it could, though? What would be the point in that? He needed to call someone, or something. He had no means of getting away; he'd be screwed if he closed the door, screwed if he ran away. In fact; when dealing with a monster that couldn't do anything while you looked at it, why take the chance and look away? No, he'd call someone and focus on blinking.

He dialled and waited, he swore that if he looked at his veins he'd see the blood pumping harder and harder with each beat of his heart. A voice clicked on the other line.

"Hello?" He replied quickly, unable to mask the fear in his shaky tone, "Yes, yes there's an emergency. Please uh… there's… this thing. It killed everyone. I-I… Yes… I'm calm, alright?" He stammered and tried to focus on blinking though he realized he'd messed up once, staring at the doll, able to see more details than before. _'Just tell her where you are, calmly, focus.'_ "The fifth floor of Investors Corps. Yes… on 11th street. Bruce Banner." He hated the questions but knew it was better to sit through it, he felt calmer while answering, less ready to scream and run for his life.

Funny how doing exactly that would result in the opposite.

Bruce expected the police but what he saw was much different, a crew of men in suits with the letters 'SCP' written on the shoulders marched in. Several went to the monster's side while the others tended to Bruce, starting to move him.

"NO!" He shoved them back, keeping his eyes on the creature, "You have to keep looking at it or it moves! Stop it! Listen to me!" He smacked at the men as they tried to strongman him out of there, this of course blocked his vision of the monster. One loud crack echoed over the room, startling the crew to look back. "See!? KEEP LOOKING AT IT! For the love of god and all that is holy, don't let it out of your sight! Don't even blink." He was surprised to find that the tone of voice he kept wasn't fear but complete annoyance that their lack of listening to him caused this.

The men looked at him for a second and nodded, "You figured this out? How did you survive while the rest died?"

"I…" Bruce couldn't figure out the best answer so he just gave the truth, "I was going to eat lunch upstairs."

"Being anti-social saved your life," One guy chuckled, "Go figure."

"Story of my life." Bruce sighed as he was led away, the others quickly adapting to the situation, contacting some big wig and figuring out 'containment' or something. Bruce couldn't really say, he was too tired to try and understand it.

"You're pretty smart for someone your age."

Bruce made a face and adjusted his glasses, "Well I'd say it's rude to judge a book by its cover but that was a compliment so I'll let it pass."

"You looking for a job?"

And just like that, Bruce was on the team. He joined the Foundation at a young age and stuck with it into his late thirties. He enjoyed the work, it didn't get boring, it kept him on his toes, and generally the idiotic people he used to hate often got what was coming to them. It was a nice change of pace, really. If anyone would ask him, Bruce would say he'd found his dream job.

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**Zafona's Note:**

**Hey guys, it was requested by a few that a story be done on SCP-173 so here you go. Please note that this is part of the SCP!verse that has been created by Matsu and myself, however this piece was written by me alone without the input of my co-author ;) ****Mangerang account is supposed to contain all materials co-authored by pennames Zafona and Touta Matsuda. This one-shot is part of a larger series and features characters that will repeat in other stories.**

******Please read and review, and of course let us know if there are any other SCP's you'd like to see handled and by what character :)**


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